Monday, January 18, 2010

Hello and happy late new year! As we all enter this new decade, we need to think of what we would like to further learn about our great friend beer. I have personally been putting together some brew years resolutions and am excited to attack them in the new year! But first, a review of how I did last year. Here's my resolutions from 12 months ago (with my comments):

Brew a cider, mead, and barley wine every year at the end of december or beginning of January I didn't get to the cider or mead yet, still looking around for a 3 gallon carboy. And still haven't made the barley wine for this year either. Damn

Brew my first beer of the year all grain! successfully done! Liberation Pale Ale came out great!

Build a kegerator Nope. Sad

Brew AT LEAST twice a month didn't do too bad. I made 15 beers in 2009 even with my crappy 5 month hiatus

READ, READ, READ about your favorite beverage Needs work. I did read a bit, but more is better

Enter numerous completitions I pulled away with 9 ribbons in '09!

Take a beer to the NHC (link)I got 2nd place in the northwest region with my stout!! but, I never got a beer brewed up and kegged that I was proud enough of to take :(

Get as many friends as possible to come the GABF (link) with me HA! I think we had close to 15? with friends from Alaska Hawaii South Dakota all over Colorado and New Mexico

Learn more about beer and food pairingDidn't get to far on this. I'm hoping the Cicerone (link) program comes out with a book sometime this year

Learn more about glasswaredidn't get anywhere on this one. But got some good new glassware

Remember on brew day beer is not a substitute for foodI was able to take this one to heart. Thank goodness :)

And so for this year, I have put together a short list that is pretty much just revised from last year:

Brew a Cider and Mead this year. And get The Penthouse Barley brewed before the end of January

Build a Kegerater.

Continue to read as much as possible about beer

Enter MORE competitions

Brew a few out of the box beers. I really like keeping beer simple, but something wacky could be fun :) and a good learning experience

Work to becoming BJCP certified (link). [I've volunteered to judge as an apprentice for the northwest first round judging for the NHC which is in Seattle this year! And also the pudget sound pro am!]

Trying brewing with the little barrel I picked up at the second hand store

And I'm sure there's more. I'll try to just add them on when I think of them.

As for recent beer, Blitzen's Ale was very well received at the homebrew meeting last week, which I'm very very happy about. All the beers that everyone brought were really great too! There was even 2 (that's right 2!) very different very tasty gruits. The last batch of black hole is now all but gone and the Porter is just getting ready to drink. I had one two nights ago and it's FANTASTIC :D I'm really excited because my good friends Morgan and Christy are in the works of opening their own bakery (check it out here!!) and on monday nights they cook for each other and I've been joining them occasionally bringing beer over, so I'm going to take the porter over tonight or maybe next week and see what they think.

The Pudget Sound Pro-Am is right around the corner again! So I need to start thinking about what I'd like to make up to put in there. I think I'll most likely put in The Penthouse '08, and then I'd like to make a belgian pale ale and a german hef. So I better start planning for those.

The plan was to brew the Penthouse Barley Wine yesterday, but a trip I'm taking to Arizona in a few weeks is getting pretty pricey, so I'm trying to save cash for the time being. I am however going to check out a few breweries while I'm there, which I'm very excited about. One is called sonoran and this is the beer pasted all over their website:19.37% alcohol, whoa. So that's sounds interesting. There's also a brewery called Four Peaks that seemed to have some really really great looking beers. I sent them an e-mail asking if maybe I can have a look around while I'm there, so hopefully that'll come through.

Last night also, a friend invited me out to a party where I met several homebrewers! One of them gave me a beer to take home and try, a burbon vanilla porter i believe, and i'm really excited to try it and also nerd out on beer with some new people!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Hello again, it's been a while eh? I guess I've been busy? It was the holidays - I don't know. Anyways, I've still been brewing though not as frequently as I would like.. About 3 weeks ago I brewed up a new version of Barack Obeera. In this one I toned down the chocolate malt and added a half pound of Crystal 80L to get a darker caramely flavor to it. I also upped the wheat malt for some nice creaminess and upped the IBUs with a lower alpha, neutral flavored hop to cut the sweetness a tad and keep everything balanced out nicely. I bottled it a few days back and I'm thinking it's going to be a mighty tasty beer :) Blitzen's HolidALE (name in progress? hahaha) came out really well!! I think I definitely made the wrong choice not getting fresh ginger and something to grind it with. I used pre ground ginger and even 1/2 tsp seems to have been just a little bit over-powering. The beer overall came out great though! I mashed in a little bit too high so it came out pretty thin and watery but the breadiness came through well and the spices were subtle and complimentary. The stout ended up coming out alright as well! I can't for the life of me get it to taste as good as that first time, but it's still a tasty brew.The future is still begging for a barley wine. The Penthouse from last year is tasting AMAZING. Very good brown sugary, oxidized, carmelly sweet deliciousness. The really strong anise flavor it had around month 7 finally fell mostly out, which I'm pleased about. I'm not a fan of that flavor. I still really need to make the '08. The plan was to make it on the 29th of December, but it was a busy and expensive month so it didn't get done. I'm going to hopefully get it together this weekend though. Same recipe as last year but all grain (with 6 pounds of extract so as not to totally waste everything in the mash tun). Then I would really like to get a Belgian Pale Ale together. I have been thinking about these since NHC this year. They were all over the place and absolutely DELICIOUS! I have a recipe together I just need to find the time and money, as always.I suppose that's all for now! There's a club meeting on Wednesday I'm taking my Holiday Spiced Ale to, I hope it's well recieved. The Penthouse was adored at the last meeting. It was very cool to see so many people light up after a sip of something you created. Belgian Fest is also right around the corner. I'm thinking that'll be a good time.

Next time: Brew Years Resolutions! Plus: A recap of if I followed through with last years!-Kyle

About Me

I remember the day I first fell in love with beer. I was a Chris Curry's house drinking the same old crap and Zach brought over some Blue Moon (i know..). I didn't realize that beer could taste so radically different (i know..)! So from that day forth I tried exciting beers until the day I experienced homebrewing. I've been hooked ever since!

"I'm on a never ending mission to make beer that myself, my friends, and my family can enjoy while collecting as many ribbons as possible!"